SC asks SQ Chy's lawyer to end argument tomorrow

The Supreme Court today asked a counsel for war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to complete their argument by tomorrow on the appeal against his death sentence.

While hearing the appeal for the 12th day, a four-member bench of Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha today asked defence lawyer SM Shahjahan to complete his argument in an hour tomorrow.

The court may fix a date tomorrow for passing an order on the appeal if the defence lawyer concludes the hearing argument timely.

While placing argument before the court today, Shahjahan told the apex court that most of the prosecution witnesses have given hear-say statement on charges against Salauddin before the International Crimes Tribunal-1.

The hear-say statements of the prosecution witnesses are not reliable since they do not corroborate with each other, he argued.

On October 1, 2013, The ICT-1 found Salauddin guilty of nine of the 23 charges brought against him of committing crimes against humanity during Liberation War of 1971.

The tribunal handed him death penalty on four charges, 20 years in jail for three charges and five years in jail for two other charges.

The BNP leader on October 29, 2013 appealed to the SC against the verdict seeking acquittal of all charges.